When you have one dream your whole life and do everything to be the best to achieve that dream only to have it crushed in the blink of an eye, what are you willing to do to survive? And how do you treat those whom give you a path to follow? With a new twist to the Russian spy genre, Jennifer Lawrence brings a strong female lead to the screen and she delivers in frequent collaborator and director Francis Lawrence’s latest film, “Red Sparrow”.
Lawrence plays Dominika Egorova, one of the premiere ballerinas in Moscow whose career is cut short after an accident during a performance. In order to keep a roof over her head and get care for her ailing mother, she agrees to work for Russian intelligence at the suggestion of her uncle (Matthias Schoenaerts) by attending “Sparrow School”. While there, she learns the art of seduction that is put to the test when she has to find the identity of a mole within their ranks through interactions with American CIA operative Nate Nash (Joel Edgerton).
The script here is intense and kept me on the edge of my seat for over two hours, with a few moments where I got the chance to let my heart rate calm down a bit, and then off it races again. Do be aware that “Red Sparrow” has a strong “R” rating due to torture, language, and graphic nudity to the point where I thought it would be closer to an “NC-17”. I know there are things I missed, so I will watch this again probably on either cable or Netflix.